Jurian Baecker's journey leads him from breaking and trading horses in central Texas to heavy involvement, as a member of an elite unit in the Union Army, in the fighting at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Over time, Jurian's youthful recklessness becomes the deep maturity found among some of those who daily see and face death. As he makes his personal journey, Jurian, known by some as Jake Baker, finds two extraordinary women, but he can keep the love of neither. He experiences both the brutality to which men can sink and the heights of compassion they can reach, even on a torn and bloody field of battle. He also assumes the terrible weight borne by those whose decisions may mean life or death to the men who fight beside them.